War Child Lament 2020

by Mary Ann Crowe


Fallen leaves return to their roots–– a Chinese Proverb

Alpine waters flow beside time-worn cobblestones
where I was born ten miles from Dachau
                        in the U.S. War Zone
Sacrifices from my American families, our unlikely
patchwork of allies divided by North and South
united to free the medieval city of my birth ––
amid ruins of plagues and war over centuries ––
banishing that latest world-wide contagion
even the cobblestones freed from harrowing sounds
no more staccato from the boots of marching Nazis
Yet today we hear America's remaining World War II
refugees and Holocaust survivors report increased
                           levels of PTSD

Some believe that death will return our souls
to a place we were before we were born
But I'll pray my soul shall not return to the small
Bavarian town up the Isar River, home to no friends
nor familial roots, where a forced labor camp once
supported Dachau's gruesome machinations
Let my seeds and last leaves nourish peace I've found
here with streets of old stone and mountain fed streams
of the native Tewa White Shell water that sustained
                                 Santa Fe
            No, my soul need not boomerang back
            across the Atlantic––
            all my beloved America, again
            our plagued U.S. war zone now


[Note: "Santa Fe" translates as "Holy Faith"]

* * * * *

"War Child Lament 2020" was first published as a poetry prize winner in the Pasatiempo 2020 Writing contest, 12 days before the January 6th Insurrection.

Mary Ann Crowe moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico to live beside an apricot tree and recuperate from debilitating illness. Poems appear in Flying South, Stories That Need To Be Told 2022, Sin Fronteras /Writers Without Borders, Miriam's Well, and Trickster Literary Journal. As a visual artist-activist-writer, her essays, art installations and public art projects have addressed gender, the environment, war and gun violence. Barnard College graduate born in Munich, Santa Fe is her 30th move between Germany, New York, Chicago, and Puerto Rico.

a new diary

by Barbara Anna Gaiardoni


a new diary
a new beginning
so what?


* * * * *

Barbara Anna Gaiardoni is an Italian pedagogist and author. She has participated in national literary and poetic competitions, obtaining the publication of her texts; currently publishes Japanese poem in English in international trade journals. Drawing is her passion.

 

We Wanted

by B. Lynne Zika


We wanted beauty,
gowns with laced bodices
and gossamer wings.
We wanted to marry our uncles
and ride sidesaddle
on the backs of their mean machines,
our arms cradling black leather
and our hair a gold banner
flying in the wind.
We wanted to look like Doris Day,
Kim Novak, the photographs of our mothers
as homecoming queen.
We wanted to collect
a gazillion Lay's potato chip bags
and win the two-wheeler Schwinn
at the Saturday matinee
and practice religious ecstasies
in the dim glow of wooded dusk
where grownups never came.
We wanted lightning bugs
splayed across summer coverlets
and unending stardom.
We wanted boobs.
We wanted to tell our men
to hang up their six-shooters
and sit down to supper,
and we wanted, just once,
to find under the Christmas tree
a BB gun for girls.
We wanted cloaks of invisibility
so that only the true-hearted could see us
and, knowing that in our fragility
lay the earth's truest strength,
hold us
the way all sacred things are held.


* * * * *

B. Lynne Zika’s photography, nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in numerous literary and consumer publications. 2022 publications include Delta Poetry Review, Backchannels, Poesy, Suburban Witchcraft, and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. In addition to editing poetry and nonfiction, she worked as a closed-captioning editor for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. Awards include: Pacificus Foundation Literary Award in short fiction, Little Sister Award and Moon Prize in poetry, and Viewbug 2020 and 2021Top Creator Awards in photography. Website: https://artsawry.com/.

             partners

                                               
             by Sister Lou Ella Hickman


             as we worship in the temple of dance
             we mirror how the divine flame moves. . .
             while we revel in the ancient orbit of the stars
             our feet echo the heartbeats of the holy . . .
             with each touch    
             our hands are the words and music of the earth
             and with every turn of our meeting or letting go
             our swirling sacred bodies sing fire 


* * * * *

Sister Lou Ella Hickman, I.W.B.S. is a former teacher and librarian whose writings have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. Press 53 published her first book of poetry in 2015 entitled she: robed and wordless. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017 and in 2020.       

 

What’s Love?

by Eve Louise Makoff


All summer Chantel and I met guys on hot sandy beaches, in the swirling flats of Santa Monica, 
and sometimes just driving Pacific Coast Highway. But that night we met you in a car full of 
salty blond guys on Main Street near the art deco condos whose front patios licked the ocean, 
and we followed you home. All summer we had sex on your shag carpet, me on top, because you 
scraped all of the skin off of your hands and legs when you rode the asphalt half a mile on 
the 10 freeway instead of your motorcycle. It didn’t matter that my car got towed or that my 
mom got mad. All summer I came to you because I was scared to leave home. I wasn’t ready to 
go to college across the country, to be out on my own. Seventeen, scared, and stupid, I needed 
my mommy who wasn’t really there. All summer you made fun of the layer of fat on my belly. 
This from the booze older sunburned guys from the beach bought from the Tex Mex place where 
they took Chantel and I to get mid-day drunk on stools over sawdust. And all summer I didn’t 
realize you were jealous, because when we heard “What’s love got to do with it?” everywhere- 
you hummed it with a smile, and I believed you every time. 


* * * * *

Eve Louise Makoff is an internal medicine and palliative care physician and a writer.

Mary at Number 27

by Nicola Pett


The wind in the gums sounds like the sssssss
 at the end of a cassette tape
when the song is over
but the tape keeps rolling.
I imagine life is like that for you.
Non-stop static.

Once, you travelled.
Just a girl, a long time ago,
traversing the continent,
alone and adventurous.
Then,
three husbands:
a ski instructor, a radio man, a sponge
and dogs, not children.
Now the last one,
settled on the crochet blanketed couch,
presses her body into you.

You are stoic in the face of illness,
‘I was born in World War Two.’
You are resilient in the face of loneliness,
‘We were rationed for years.’
At times you are momentarily depressed but…
‘We got on with things.’

Your nemesis, Dementia
maroons you, tethers you to the neighbourhood,
to a loop of repetitive daily walks, of repetitive conversation -
the same questions, same memories, same stories.
Still,
you remember that I have not been to see you in months.
Reproach in your tone,
‘I thought you moved.’
But I have been too busy,
searching for solitary moments in my spare time,
seeking space,
whilst you are trying to fill it.

The days tick over.

Last week, we met on our road,
your nose was scabbed.
I thought you’d had a skin cancer removed
but you’d fallen
on a walk,
in the middle of the day
and not one car
stopped or helped.
Maybe they didn’t see you
passed out on the grass.
Face first.
Maybe no one drove by.

When you came to
you got on with things
and walked back to your place.
‘I’m not going into a home.’
You know your mind.
‘The doctor told me I wouldn’t remember anything by Christmas.’
You proved him wrong.

The days tick over.
The days tick over.

‘It’s not a heatwave.’
You tell me during a week of thirty five degree heat.
‘It’s not hot and I don’t need an air conditioner.’
I had thought of bringing ice-cream,
instead, we boil the kettle.
My imaginings of the elderly susceptible to heat induced death
melt away.
You used to knit but it’s harder to do that
since that rotten dog attacked Bella
and you got your fingers caught in its collar.
Twist, crack!
One broken finger later, one week in hospital later.
‘Do you know he never apologised, the owner.’
We sip tea and ruminate over the sheer callousness.

The day, the days
tick over
and over
and over.
The day ticks over.
Sssssss.
The wind is picking up.


* * * * *

Nicola Pett has a Masters in Journalism and Mass Communications and a Bachelor of Arts in Performing Arts. She has worked as an actor, voice-over artist, writer and creative producer. She currently teaches English and Literature in Cairns, Australia. Nicola lives with her husband and three children in the rainforest.

Samsara

by Melanie Choukas-Bradley

 

“I am in love with life and would choose samsara over nirvana any day. Even if we are indeed all illusions, then let’s make this the best and most beautiful and compassionate illusion possible.”
                                                                                                    -Beate Sigriddaughter

 
Samsara, there is that word gone missing
Samsara, like samara, the seed that flies to birth the tree
With an extra “s” for song
 
The song of the earth, longing to be loved
Samsara samsara, now that I know you
I could sing you all day
 
Last night I dreamed of the dead
Gathered around a hearth of their own making
One smiling, one grieving, one searching for a missing kitchen tray
 
This February morning robins join the dawn chorus
The earth is warm with Lenten roses and coddling clouds
Winter aconites so yellow-bright, they stand in for the sun
 
Who would not wish to return?
Samsara. Welcome home


* * * * *

Melanie Choukas-Bradley is a naturalist and award-winning author of seven nature books, including City of Trees, A Year in Rock Creek Park, Finding Solace at Theodore Roosevelt Island and The Joy of Forest Bathing. She began writing poetry during the pandemic and had the good fortune to discover Beate Sigriddaughter’s Writing in a Woman’s Voice. The site has featured several of her poems, including “How to Silence a Woman,” and “If I have loved you,” both of which won Moon Prizes. Her poetry has also appeared in New Verse News.    

The Miserable

by Tammy B. Tsonis


I was born to be miserable like my mother and her mother before her. 


I was five when I discovered my destiny. I ran toward the kitchen for my favorite snack – a hostess twinkie - and saw my mother crying, tears rolling down her cheeks as she held a dirty mop in her hand. I hid behind the corner, embarrassed to have unearthed her secret.

She raised her head, aware of a sound stirring in the hallway. She stopped and looked around, concerned her weakness had been exposed. My lips were sealed tight like the packaging of that sweet vanilla cake my hungry stomach craved. Content that her secret was safe, she sang a tune I had heard many times before.

I ran over, clanking the heels of my favorite black patent Mary Janes on the ceramic floor.


“My darling!” She lit up rubbing her cheeks to erase the faint traces of tears. She squeezed me tight and handed me the snack, the soft crackling cellophane squished in my hand.

“Mommy, I like when you sing.” I announced. “What are you happy about?”

She gave me a weak smile, “We don’t just sing when we’re happy. Sometimes we sing when we’re sad.”
 
“Why would you sing when you’re sad?”

“Because that’s what your grandmother did,” she replied. “Her big heart was a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces lay scattered across the floor. She had a difficult life. When she was young, she worked on the family farm and once the War hit, she lost two brothers and the man she was going to marry. She sang to ease the pain, but when the sky was clear and the wind blew east, a tear would sneak down her cheek and glisten in the sunlight.”

“There was someone else before Grandpa John?” I asked, shocked by the thought. “Did Grandma love Grandpa like she loved the man who died?”

“I’m sure she grew to love Grandpa, but you can never love two men the same way,” she replied with a faraway stare.

As I got older, I began to understand that life was never what it seemed. It was harsh, a temptress of happiness who left footprints of disappointment in the sand. I found that people never told you what you didn’t want to hear, and that our body always spoke what the heart was too afraid to reveal.

I was fifteen when I learned my mother’s secret. Like her mother before her, she loved another. The family forbade the union because the young man came from a different class – his hands were too rough and his language too foreign. Instead, they found her a suitable match. John was a man ten years her senior, a banker who owned a house in town, but his heart was a squeaky, rusted seesaw - high and warm one minute, low and cold, then next. He loved his children dearly but found his wife an imperfect porcelain doll who only sat pretty, and whose fragile fingers were inept for the demands of housework. Their relationship was distant and argumentative. I would find my mother singing in the bathroom, with the door ajar when I left for school or as she mopped the floors, left dingy from my father’s muddy footprints. The walls echoed her sadness, and each room felt tired and worn. I swore to myself that I rather die alone than be with someone I didn’t love.

Five years passed and I swapped small town rumors for the murmurs of traffic and flashing lights of the city. I fell in love with the city and the man who helped build it. He was tall, muscular, with eyes the color of the sea. His kisses were the perfect blend of intoxicating wine, and hints of chocolate indulgence. I promised to go anywhere with him as long as he loved me. Until one day, he said he didn’t. He whispered that he’d met another who captured his soul and made him feel alive. He said I couldn’t possibly understand. Yet, I knew exactly what he meant.

I was crushed and alone. I had nowhere to go and decided to return home. My mother welcomed me with open arms.

“My darling, it’s great to have you home,” she said. “I’m sorry you’re heartbroken, but time will heal your wounds. One day you’ll meet another,” she smiled, mimicking the words that were once spoken to her.

“I know I will.” I frowned. “But it won’t be the same.”

“No, it won’t, but it won’t be miserable if you don’t let it.” She squeezed my hand in silence, and we changed the discussion to lighter topics – the new bakery down the street, and the first sign of fall in the air.

I started my new life in those same familiar streets. I met new friends, discovered an old hobby – painting landscapes in watercolors - and worked a promising office job, as each new day flew by.

Soon, I met Ben.

He held my hand, his dark espresso eyes danced in excitement every time he smiled. He told me I was beautiful, and that he would love me forever. Anyone would say he was perfect, but something was missing when his lips brushed mine and the scent of harsh pine cologne filled my nostrils. I pushed the thought away, hoping it would remain buried in the depths of my soul, away from the sun and truth of daylight.

Six months later, he surprised me with an outing at the lake. It was a breezy summer day in late June, the water glistened under the radiant sky. He oared the grey-colored rowboat we sat in while I admired the cliffs in the distance, silently taking in the beauty of a new place we discovered.

He cleared his throat and stopped the boat, taking hold of my hand.

“Clara, you have made me the happiest I’ve been in a long time.” He reached in his pocket with his other hand. “Will you marry me?” He brought out a ring and eagerly looked in my eyes for an answer.

I took a breath. “Yes.” I said, the words pouring out of my mouth like a tempestuous hurricane, unleashed without warning.

I stared at the ring, hypnotized, a knot forming in my stomach.

“Is everything ok? Ben asked.

“Of course.” I gave him a weak smile. “Just tired.”

Later that night, Ben took me back home. He kissed me like he always did, his eyes more animated now than they had been before. “We can celebrate tomorrow when you’re feeling better.”

I undressed and crept into bed, not noticing the song I had begun to sing. Once I did, a tear crept down my cheek and glistened in the moonlight.


* * * * *

Tammy B. Tsonis is a writer of fiction, short stories, and poetry. Some of her works include "Chicago" (poem) published in Local Honey Literary Magazine, "A Place to Rest Your Paws" (short story) published in The Raven's Perch Literary Magazine, "Grateful" (essay) scheduled to be published in March 2023 in Hallaren Literary Magazine. She has also self-published Lost Among the Tide (novella) in 2021.

 Downpour

by L. Quattrochi


Loneliness
seems to spring
like water a fountain long darkened
seeing the light after its long hiding. The water of
loneliness. Given to reflections and footsteps. The water
where all things echo, distorted. The water of you and me. We
are two fountains that flow separately, contained within ourselves.
We can never become one fountain instead of two.

* * * * *

L. Quattrochi is an eighteen-year-old poet who is currently in college studying education. She is also working on her second novel. In her free time, she enjoys taking walks in the woods and writing in many diaries.

 

Inspiration Point

by Jane Muschenetz


In this version of history, Marge
never went to college; Marge went to college briefly; Marge went to
an all-girls college in the Roaring 1920’s /
in pre-revolution Iran / in 2022 Afghanistan / in 2005 Harvard,
when the school’s President attributed underrepresentation
of women in science to:

“…different availability of aptitude at the high end… a level of commitment
that a much higher fraction of married men have been historically prepared to make than of married women.”[1]

Controversy arose
when Marge wore pants / rode a bike / drove a car / played baseball / practiced medicine;
Marge was jailed / sent to an asylum for reading too much and managing
her own finances; Marge was rich and White;
Marge was poor and White; Marge was rich and Latina /
Latina and gay / Black / Indigenous / Jewish / Muslim…
Marge went to a Catholic boarding school / a convent / a convention /
the 1977 National Women’s Conference; she participated
in the women councils that governed ancient civilizations alongside the men;
Marge studied art and mothering, gave birth
to astrophysics, Jesus, and software engineering;
walked alone late at night through the city center /
the college campus / the parking lot / the grocery store / the corn field /
the timeline
                        (oh the magnificent view!)

Fearless

___________

[1] “Harvard President Summers’ Remarks About Women in Science, Engineering,” PBS News Radio Hour, Feb 22, 2005, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/science-jan-june05-summersremarks_2-22


* * * * *

Ukrainian-born, Russian-speaking Jew, Jane Muschenetz came to the US as a child refugee from the USSR. Her first chapbook, All the Bad Girls Wear Russian Accents, is forthcoming in 2023 (Kelsay Books). Connect with Jane at www.PalmFrondZoo.com, and in various publications.

 

The Wolves at the Door

by Jane Muschenetz


when the doorbell rings, I think like a mother thinks, in little steps
pounding to the entryway, My Heart,
inside my body (which is inside the bathtub) ready to leap…

she is neither city-folk nor country-wise,
my Zoom-blooded girl, my nightly tucked away treasure—

will she remember to not blindly open
the door, like the little goats in the story who outsmarted the wolf? or
will I need to rise, slick and streaming through the house
grab her to safety, like all good mothers, coiled to spring
even the ones taking a quiet bath on the last day of their menstrual cycle and
especially the ones who follow the news cycle?

will she remember to pretend, like I taught her to,
that no one is home? or at least, to ask who it is at the door
and come back to me (even though I just told her
Mama is not to be disturbed unless it’s an emergency)?

when the doorbell rings, I think like a Jewish (Black/Asian/Native Am./etc…) mother thinks
of all those things
I have not yet taught her


* * * * *

Ukrainian-born, Russian-speaking Jew, Jane Muschenetz came to the US as a child refugee from the USSR. Her first chapbook, All the Bad Girls Wear Russian Accents, is forthcoming in 2023 (Kelsay Books). Connect with Jane at www.PalmFrondZoo.com, and in various publications.

One in a Million

by Christen Lee


You, my dear, are one in a million
amongst this city of faces
cascading in all directions.
And I am but one drop in a rising ocean
fading to blue.

God knows I’ve been here before,
and I’ve been one hundred different versions
of you,
blending in one hundred different directions
like you,
but I have grown weary
of teeming streets and rising tides,
of dogged time and sleepless nights.
I’m not the same person
who walked these roads twenty years before.

I come to the city to find myself
within the loud mosaic,
to find my footing
like a Foucault pendulum swinging up and down
but never in a straight line.

My mind is a fury
once full of possibility,
but with age there is a narrowing,
a certainty of place.

This city of 2.6 million
has already named me
and I’ve only just stepped foot
into a storied past.

Call me mother, middle-aged,
midwesterner, dreamer,
something that can surface in this sea of beings
where I was once childless, child,
unsettled, unsure.

Here there are a million shops
selling promises that glow like gold
but I promise to never sell my soul
for want
when all I really want is to want less.
You see,
the less I want,
the more I have to give.

So I plant my love in the ones
who are born of all my possibilities,
the ones in a million
whom I call home.


* * * * *

Christen Lee is a family nurse practitioner in Cleveland, Ohio. Her writing has been featured in the Literary Cleveland’s Voices from the Edge Anthology, Rue Scribe, The Write Launch, Aurora, Humans of the World Blog, Sad Girls Club, 2022 New Generation Beats Anthology, Wingless Dreamer and is forthcoming in The Voices of Real 7 Compilation.

 

This Is Only the Beginning

by Christen Lee


Dim lights frame the hospital room.
My breath catches on the hard linoleum
as a crushing wave encircles me,
squeezes the baby.

It’s sterile, this room with metal carts
gloves and gowns
and my arm, it bites with needles
as another tube fills deep red

my red blood
my clenched fist
my splayed body on display
as the nurses point and probe
and announce,
“It’s time.”

“Push!”
The nurses bellow
as I grit my teeth and my body sinks
under a tsunami.
I surface for words,
“How’s the baby?”

A calm hand mops my brow,
“You’ve got this.”
I tremble,
“No, no, I can’t…”
A soft voice,
“The baby’s almost here.”

Daylight strikes
the room now blinding,
searing like knives.
“A head! Black hair!”

I writhe and I gnash, I squall and I slump
like a towel wrung dry.
Chips of ice feed my parched tongue.

“Just one more push!”
So I gasp, bear down,
impound my insides like sheet metal

I weep and I curse
and I promise you the whole world.
Yes, things will get better, just wait—
some stories have brutal beginnings.

I howl and I bleed,
rip hidden seams
and pour my life force into you,
my son.
 
You,
whom I will forever
push toward life.

You,
whom I will forever
pull toward love.


* * * * *

Christen Lee is a family nurse practitioner in Cleveland, Ohio. Her writing has been featured in the Literary Cleveland’s Voices from the Edge Anthology, Rue Scribe, The Write Launch, Aurora, Humans of the World Blog, Sad Girls Club, 2022 New Generation Beats Anthology, Wingless Dreamer and is forthcoming in The Voices of Real 7 Compilation.

PARTING THE NIGHT’S LONG HAIR

by Emily Black


I glimpse his face once more. How fleeting
are our sweet meetings, but how eternal.

Our time with each other is not that of a clock
ticking, it’s more like pearls strung together

to make a glimmering, iridescent circle,
an indestructible circle, our elemental essence.

We need not fear anything, nor take flight
at a rustling sound that seems too close.

Merged, we are a monument to life’s eternal
moment, woven into heaven’s sheltering love.


* * * * *

Emily Black was the second woman to graduate from the University of Florida in Civil Engineering, then engaged in a long engineering career as the only woman in a sea of men. Lately, she’s been writing poetry, has been published in numerous literary journals, and was a recipient of the 79th Moon Prize awarded by Writing in a Woman’s Voice in 2021. Her first book of poetry, The Lemon Light of Morning, published by Bambaz Press, was released in February 2022. A second book is scheduled for release in the spring of 2023. Emily wears Fire Engine Red lipstick.   

THE COLOR OF SUNLIGHT
     ON HIS HAIR                                                                        by Emily Black

     weaves silver threads, that shine and
pull me like a magnet. I can imagine 

birds nesting there to sing songs of joy,
sing to my heart. I inhale a woodsy smell

as I stroke his once-dark hair inherited from
a distant Italian ancestor whose blood bestowed

a romantic streak that runs amid a sea
of English reserve and practicality. I think,

this is the perfect man for me, as he hands me
a cup of tea, the balm of an Englishman’s soul.


* * * * *

Emily Black was the second woman to graduate from the University of Florida in Civil Engineering, then engaged in a long engineering career as the only woman in a sea of men. Lately, she’s been writing poetry, has been published in numerous literary journals, and was a recipient of the 79th Moon Prize awarded by Writing in a Woman’s Voice in 2021. Her first book of poetry, The Lemon Light of Morning, published by Bambaz Press, was released in February 2022. A second book is scheduled for release in the spring of 2023. Emily wears Fire Engine Red lipstick.   

When I have been washed too much

by Frances Gaudiano

                                   
It comes every few years,
That frazzled around the edges feeling.
People pull strings on me.
I unwind.

Usually, I am stronger stuff –
A rippling canvas sail,
Stiff, all business blue jeans.
But today, I am a thin chiffon
Curtain, fraying at the edges.

Hold me up –
You can see right through me.
Pluck out my seams.
Unravel my stitches.

There’s not much to it.
I can be completely unmade.
Turned into unspooled thread
The connections are so loose.

I see me
Blowing away, swept into an
Alley, no starch left to resist,
Tossed in the nearest dustbin.

An old tattered rag,
Not even fit to clean with.
When I have been washed too much


* * * * *

Frances Gaudiano is a veterinary nurse and practicing druid. Her novel, The Listener, was published last year and two other projects are in the editing stages. Her poetry has appeared in a variety of journals and she hopes to produce a chapbook soon. Currently, she lives in Cornwall (England) with two dogs, a husband and a frightening teenager. 

 

Estrangement 

by Frances Gaudiano

                                                                                                           
Dart for the crumb,
Hunger overriding fear.
The winter has been long
And the branches bare.

Dancing on cold feet
The gull taps a worm
From the sodden soil,
Snatched and swallowed swiftly.

I know emptiness.
Gnawing at the backbone,
Loss eats up everything.

Once there was a feast
A surfeit of clamouring children.
Each day stuffed with their noise.
Their needs nourished me.

So long the silence now.
Any morsel, I grasp and savour.
Even if the words be poison,
They are better than an empty plate.


* * * * *

Frances Gaudiano is a veterinary nurse and practicing druid. Her novel, The Listener, was published last year and two other projects are in the editing stages. Her poetry has appeared in a variety of journals and she hopes to produce a chapbook soon. Currently, she lives in Cornwall (England) with two dogs, a husband and a frightening teenager. 

 

Winter Light

by Laura Ann Reed


Splashes of February light dazzle
on the garden path. At a window,
I bask in a rare moment
of wholeness—not thinking
of broken things. For no reason,
I call to my husband, Do you know
the date?

When he shouts back,
February 11^th that hollow place
between my ribs, below my heart
caves in. My dad. Today he’d be 108.

I think of the way he held me
in his lap and read aloud
from my favorite Golden Book:
Doctor Dan, The Fix-It Man.
How I loved that big black bag
of Band-Aids for bleeding knees,
those tubes of glue for damaged dolls.

The last time I saw my father, his face
lay half-hidden under an oxygen mask,
his eyes no longer taking in the sun
outside a window streaked with dust.
He wanted me to help him lift the mask
so he could speak. But I shook my head,
afraid he wouldn’t confess that he allowed
the bond between us to crack and shatter
like river ice. His unspoken words, now
tiny fish forever stilled— their shadows
below the frozen surface of water almost
visible in winter light.


* * * * *

Laura Ann Reed, a San Francisco Bay Area native, taught modern dance and ballet at the
University of California, Berkeley before working as a leadership development trainer at the San
Francisco headquarters of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Her work has
appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the United States, Canada, and Britain. She is
the author of the chapbook, Shadows Thrown (2023). Laura and her husband live in the Pacific
Northwest.

 

If Only the Crow

by Melissa Coffey


If only I had heeded
the signs—
the unsettling of feathers
at the edges of consciousness,
like carrion birds; restless
from the first scent
of carnage on the wind

If only I had sensed
the flaring of hackles
at the throat; carefully
crafted the question, before it broke
from my mouth, shattering
the brittle air of trust,
hung in the balance between us

If only I had swallowed
the voice — the trick of a gasp reversed, but
even disowned and disembodied,
it assumes power enough for consequences;
too late to quell the cacophony,
discord rising like the disquieting silence
of beating wings, seen from a distance

If only I had caught
the squawking crow of my need
before it lifted from my tongue,
caged it back inside my rib-bones;
the peck and pry of my insistence,
raucous beak like scissors, slicing
through the possibility of your answer

If only I could comprehend—
the movement of your mouth, a dumb-show
behind the obscuring shadow of the crow,
careening between your unheard words,
my skewed perceptions; perhaps you answered my question,
but your voice was blanketed by the thunder
from the turn of your heel, the grenade of you walking away


* * * * *

“If Only the Crow” was first published in Scrittura, hosted by Medium.com (2021-2022).

Melissa Coffey is an Australian published writer, poet and editor, residing in Melbourne. She holds a BA (Hons) in Theatre Studies and engages strongly with themes of the Feminine. Her short stories and poetry are published (sometimes incognito) in international and Australian anthologies (The Mammoth Book series, Cleis Press, Stringybark Stories) and literary journals (The Ekphrastic Review, Not Very Quiet, Illura Press). She has work forthcoming in The Last Girls Club. Melissa is currently seeking publication for her debut poetry chapbook. She publishes writing craft and poetry articles at https://medium.com/@Melissa_Coffey Find her on Twitter @CuriousSeeds.

 

 

Still a Girl

by Lacie Semenovich


Serendipity of a sober night.
Serendipity of a glance across

a crowded dance floor, cliché,
I know, but true. I never believed

in love at first sight, but I still
remember your face, your

radiance, your smile as everyone
else melted into watercolors

around us, as we melted into
one another and I gave you

my real phone number.
Serendipity that you

remembered it. Serendipity of youth
that an hour is not too far to drive

each night for love.

Each day is a falling in love
when you sweat over dinner,

half-naked and red in a small
kitchen. Each day is falling

when you graze the inside
of my arm with your fingertips,

when you miss my cheek and kiss
my neck. Each day I fall

when you accept my dirty dishes
in the sink, my papers and books

stacked in corners and on tables,
my half-finished scarves, necklaces,

and paintings throughout the house.
Each day I fall into your eyes

to see the boy still there looking
back across a crowded life

looking only at me like I am
still a girl, the only one in the world.


* * * * *

Lacie Semenovich is a poet and fiction writer living in Cleveland, Ohio. Her work has appeared in B O D Y, Sheila-Na-Gig online, Qwerty, Chiron Review, and The Best Small Fictions 2020. She is the author of a chapbook, Legacies (Finishing Line Press). 

 

Hope is the thing with feathers
            - Emily Dickinson

by Lacie Semenovich


My hope cowers in the rain, a gold
finch in a hurricane, the windows
boarded, the roof flapping like a wing.

Sitting in the park, my hope counts
cigarette butts on the ground. She collects
garbage from the gutter to warm her nest.

My hope begs on the pier in St. Pete,
jostles her sisters, spreads her gullet for dead
fish thrown by tourists.

Wind drunk, my hope glides the sky
in search of mice to fatten her belly, never
satisfied, she misnames her hunger.

My hope lies like a devil.

As a child, I gathered hope from
the shore, wet, salty leftovers pressed
into books my mother threw out.

My hope sings a prayer to sunrise,
to awakening, to breath, to spring’s
slow revolution.

I sleep on pillows of hope. Wrapped
in a comforter stuffed with hope. On
a bed so soft I dream of flying.

My hope, sanitized, sharpened, dipped
in ink, spreads words across paper, hoping
itself to live forever.


* * * * *

Lacie Semenovich is a poet and fiction writer living in Cleveland, Ohio. Her work has appeared in B O D Y, Sheila-Na-Gig online, Qwerty, Chiron Review, and The Best Small Fictions 2020. She is the author of a chapbook, Legacies (Finishing Line Press). 

Feather to Stone

by Joan Leotta


You see me as a feather,
as I ride the breeze
down to you, gently
swaying.
You say you
do not even feel me
when I land on your heart,
softly.
Your hardness
deflects my tiny
self.
When breeze calls again,
I float away, weeping for you.
You cannot move.
Your stone self is
stuck
in equally hard earth,
incapable
of understanding that my
very softness,
my lightness, is my
strength.
You are forgiven.


* * * * *

"Feather to Stone" was first published in Peacock Poetry in 2019, and is now also published in Joan Leotta's chapbook, Feathers on Stone, out from Main Street Rag in 2022.
https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/feathers-on-stone-joan-leotta/

Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. She performs tales featuring food, family, and strong women. Internationally published, she’s a 2021 and 2022 Pushcart nominee, a Best of the Net 2022 nominee, and a 2022 runner-up in the Robert Frost Competition. Her essays, poems, and fiction are in Ekphrastic Review, When Women Write, The Lake, Verse Visual, Verse Virtual, anti-heroin chic, Gargoyle, Silver Birch, The Wild, Ovunquesiamo, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and Yellow Mama, among others. Her chapbooks are Languid Lusciousness with Lemon from Finishing Line Press and Feathers on Stone from Main Street Rag. 

Good Thing

by Cynthia Bernard


Good thing I’ve got two shoulders
on a bad day
when my right arm
can’t even pick up a towel

Used to be easy
to wash a pan
brush my hair
pull on a sleeve

Used to be
applying deodorant
didn’t turn me into a contortionist

Never thought twice about
turning a doorknob
carrying a cup of tea
walking downhill
rolling over

Always thought I’d want to go on forever
but if the worst days
become my every day
I don’t know

Never thought anything would stop me
but the right shoulder
the left knee
my hips
both hands

Moderate to severe degenerative changes
said the doctor
you can see it on the x-rays

I can feel it in my days
don’t want it
can’t change it
and here it is

My beloved
weaves his fingers through mine
drawing me close
my heart welcomes him
but my fingers cannot
and we have to find another way
to intertwine


* * * *

"Good Thing" was first published in MockingOwl Roost (Volume 2, Poetry Special Issue 2022).

Cynthia Bernard is a woman in her late 60's who is finding her voice as a poet after many decades of silence. A long-time classroom teacher and a spiritual mentor, she lives and writes on a hill overlooking the ocean, about 20 miles south of San Francisco. 

 

This month's Moon Prize, the 111th, goes to Lola Haskins' stunning poem "Leaving Belgrade."  


Leaving Belgrade

by Lola Haskins


           I am Croatian but my wife, Hana, she is Serbian.

Every day
Luka read in the papers the ads of willing assassins.

Every day
someone else spat in front of him on the street.

Every day
his position at the university became slightly less clear.

By the time
he decided to leave, it was too late to take anything but two cases.

The first
he packed with clothes, his, Hana's but only a few of Ivo's and Ela's

because
they were still growing. The second, Hana filled with what she could not

bring herself
to leave behind: her mother's tablecloth, her grandmother's salt shakers,

the cloth flowers
her sister had made her so she would not feel so alone in the new place. 

Luka emptied
that case and replaced its contents with so many outdated math books

he had
to sit on it to close it. When Hana protested her lost things,

Luka
told her, leave them, let's go. And she remembered how he'd worked

so late
all their married life, even on weekends, that she and the children hardly

saw him.
It was then she understood that wherever they settled, nothing would change.


* * * * *

Lola Haskins' most recent collection – Asylum: Improvisations on John Clare  (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019) – was featured in the NY Times Sunday Magazine. Past honors include the Iowa Poetry Prize, two NEAs, four Florida individual artist awards, two Florida Book Awards, narrative poetry prizes from Southern Poetry Review and New England Poetry Review, a Florida's Eden prize for environmental writing, and the Emily Dickinson/Writer Magazine Award from Poetry Society of America.

Living with the Elephant

by Cynthia Bernard


I guess the fog has little cat feet sometimes
but around here
it dances with the wind,
wild and fierce,
especially at dawn,
howling across the ocean, up the hill,
gusting my robe against me,
sloshing coffee into my face as I try for a sip.

I guess aging is gradual sometimes
but around here
it’s been a tempest,
arising suddenly,
wild and fierce and relentless,
wrenching my days apart
into a before that can never be found again
and a very different now.

I guess one could fight it sometimes,
hair dye, face cream, denial,
supplements and potions,
exercises, affirmations.
I guess one could simply accept it,
sometimes.
Around here, though,
arthritis has swept in on elephant feet,
fierce and relentless,
and no pill, no potion,
no affirmation, no meditation,
can sweep it out again.

I guess one could handle things gracefully
and sometimes I do,
but around here there are the other times, too,
when everything seems to hurt
and I just want to stay under a quilt
for whatever part of forever
I get to see.

And then again there are yet other times,
sometimes,
the majesty of the ocean at first light,
the sweetness of love found late,
my hand sliding into his,
new buds on the camellia,
rain on the roof, deer in the yard,
granddaughter’s smile,
or just a nothing-special-time
in the exquisiteness of the now.

And I find that sometimes,
increasingly often,
I welcome it all,
the cat’s feet and the elephant,
things wild and fierce,
quiet moments and raging ones,
lines on my face,
creaky joints and aching bones,
wind in my hair,
full heart,
fog over the ocean at dawn.


* * * * *

"Living with the Elephant" was first published in Multiplicity Magazine (Issue 4, Spring/Summer 2022).

Cynthia Bernard is a woman in her late 60's who is finding her voice as a poet after many decades of silence. A long-time classroom teacher and a spiritual mentor, she lives and writes on a hill overlooking the ocean, about 20 miles south of San Francisco. 

At the beginning of the road

by Irma Kurti


Here I am,
not at peace,
a ball of sadness
and also of tears.

A new
disappointment ...
I thought
I’d changed,
I’d become rational,
abandoning
the candor
and my escape
to an ideal world,
without people
without pains.

Here I am,
at the beginning
of the road,
tired of all,
especially
of myself.
A suitcase
as old as me
in my hand,
accompanies me
in these cases.

A difficult road
is waiting ahead
in search
of my soul mate.
How many
kilometers are left,
how many
disillusionments
I’ll meet,
I wonder if
he does really exist.

Once again,
at the beginning
of the road ...


* * * * *

Irma Kurti is an Albanian poetess, writer, lyricist, journalist, and translator. She is a naturalized Italian. She has been writing since she was a child. She has won numerous literary prizes and awards in Italy and Italian Switzerland. In 2020, she received the title of Honorary President of WikiPoesia, the Encyclopedia of Poetry. She is a member of the jury of several literal competitions.

Irma Kurti has published 26 books in Albanian, 20 in Italian and 10 in English. She is also the translator of 12 books of different authors and of all her books in Italian and English.  

 

SIDES

by Susan L. Pollet


Forced to take sides
No more sitting on
The sidelines when
Freedoms are at stake
No more baking
Cookies and cake
Some sisters may
Not support rights
They will fight too
In the other faction
The edges are not blurred
Sharp camps without entente
No negotiation or mediation
When women's choice over
Their bodies is attacked
There is no going back
To the wire hanger


* * * * *

Susan L. Pollet is an author, artist, advocate for women’s and children’s rights, rewired lawyer, proud mother and grandmother, and world traveler.  She is a past president of the Westchester Women’s Bar Association and past Vice President of the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York.  She is currently the co-chair of the Domestic Violence Committee for Wbasny.

POINT-BLANK

by Susan L. Pollet


Shot her point-blank in the face
While she pushed the stroller
With their infant child
He wanted her to know her place
She died and he disappeared
With plenty of traces which led
To his capture—not much of a chase
He became a court case and she
Became candles and flowers on the
Street where she was gunned down
The child to grow in another’s embrace
No point to the blankness
Of the point-blank shot in the face


* * * * *

Susan L. Pollet is an author, artist, advocate for women’s and children’s rights, rewired lawyer, proud mother and grandmother, and world traveler.  She is a past president of the Westchester Women’s Bar Association and past Vice President of the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York.  She is currently the co-chair of the Domestic Violence Committee for Wbasny.